A study from New York University has shown that when we focus on the main reasons behind inequality, it helps children see economic differences more fairly. This study gives us new ideas about how to make sure kids don’t unfairly judge people with less money.
The research helps us see how kids’ ideas about money can change, and it suggests ways to make sure they don’t have unfair opinions about people who don’t have as much.
“When making sense of social inequalities, adults may consider the structural forces at play—for example, people may cite policies related to legacy admissions when thinking about how disparities first arise,” the researchers explain. “But children don’t necessarily see differences in status in this way—and when children are prompted to consider the structural forces, they tend to interpret these structures differently from how adults do.”
Explaining inequality
The study found that children notice when some people have more money than others, and they might treat them differently because of it. For example, they might think that people with more money are better.
In the study, researchers looked at how kids think about why some people have more money. They wanted to see how the reasons they heard would affect how they feel about the situation, like whether they think it’s fair or if they want to help the people with less money. The study also tried to find out if these reasons could help kids not have unfair opinions about people with less money.
To do this, they asked more than 200 kids, aged 5 to 10, to take part in an online activity. In the activity, the kids learned about two made-up groups: the ‘Toogits’ (who had more money) and the ‘Flurps’ (who had less money). The researchers wanted to test kids’ thoughts without using real groups to avoid any real biases.
Exploring biases
The kids saw pictures of where these groups lived, with the ‘Toogits’ in a nice house and the ‘Flurps’ in a less nice one.
The researchers explained the inequality between the groups in three different ways:
- One way said it was because of rules the ‘Toogits’ made a long time ago.
- Another way also said it was because of rules made a long time ago, but didn’t say who made them.
- The last way didn’t give any explanation at all.
The study found that only the first way, where the ‘Toogits’ were blamed for making the rules that caused the difference, made a big difference. Kids who heard this explanation were less unfair to the ‘Flurps,’ thought the difference wasn’t as fair, and wanted to share more things with the ‘Flurps.’
But when kids heard the second way (without blaming the ‘Toogits’) or the third way (without any explanation), they didn’t act differently from those who didn’t hear anything at all.
This research teaches us that how we explain differences in money to kids can change how they see the situation and how they treat others.
“In engaging with children about inequality, whether it’s linked to wealth or educational attainment, it’s important to not only identify a structural cause underlying a disparity, such as legacy admissions, but to also identify the group influential in the implementation of those structures,” the authors conclude. “We think these findings can be used to better understand how we can meaningfully engage with children about inequality.”
